Jul 18, 2025

How to install phoenixd on macOS

A detailed step-by-step of the installation process.

The installation had some quirks so I wanted to document the process in case it's able to help others in the future.

Let's get right into it.

  1. Download the latest binaries from ACINQ's GitHub repo (it's going to look something like phoenixd-0.6.1-macos-x64.zip)
  2. Go to the folder where the ZIP file was downloaded to and extract its contents
  3. Open a terminal and go the the extracted folder. You should see phoenixd and phoenix-cli when running ls -l
  4. Run ./phoenixd and you should see a popup saying that applications outside of the App Store aren't allowed.

Screenshot 2025-07-17 at 11.22.28 PM.png

  1. Go to System Settings > Privacy & Security > Security and there should be a section on phoenixd and an option to "Allow Anyway"

Screenshot 2025-07-17 at 11.21.36 PM.png

  1. After allowing the app, go back to the terminal and run ./phoenixd again
  2. This time, it should start succesfully. Just type "I understand" a few times and you're off to the races.

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Congrats, you run a node!